Paula Donovan

Paula Donovan is a licensed clinical social worker with 20 years of experience helping people navigate hard moments. She brings warmth, gentle directness, and an Irish accent that puts some clients at ease. Paula believes clients are the experts on their own lives and works alongside them to set practical, doable goals. Her approach focuses on strengths and real-life changes. Paula uses client-centered listening to understand each person's story. She pairs that with cognitive behavioral techniques to spot unhelpful thinking and DBT skills to manage intense emotion. Mindfulness and motivational interviewing appear when clients want to build daily habits or fuel lasting motivation. Paula often helps people facing grief, anxiety, depression, relationship problems, and career questions. She also supports those dealing with addiction, trauma, caregiving stress, aging concerns, and issues around intimacy and identity. Clients come for help with sleep, eating, anger, and coping with major life transitions. In sessions she aims for a trusting connection and a clear plan. Conversations include identifying patterns, practicing new responses, and setting small experiments to try between meetings. Humor and compassion are part of the work when they fit. Paula works from Virginia as a VA LCSW and conducts sessions in English. If someone wants to begin, they will complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule appointments according to the available times listed on the site.

How Paula’s approaches translate to online therapy

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and building a respectful connection. Online conversations follow the same idea - the therapist listens closely and reflects what matters most to the client. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches practical skills to change patterns that cause distress. It is useful for anxiety, depression, and work-related stress. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT, offers emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal skills that help when feelings run very high or relationships are strained.

Finding the right approach is a process Paula treats as collaborative. She will talk with the client about goals, try techniques, and adjust the plan based on what helps. That means the work can shift between talking, practicing exercises, and setting small experiments to try between sessions.

Session formats are not specified in Paula's biography, so confirm the current options before booking. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, reduce travel time, and allow for shorter check-ins when needed. It can also make it simpler to try new skills in real-life moments and then discuss how they went at the next meeting.